Experts seek origin labels on food products

A Food expert, Prof Tola Atinmo, has thrown his weight on the inclusion of information on countryof origin on food labels.

Atinmo, president, Federation of African Nutrition Societies (FANUS),said fresh meat, poultry, fish and dairy products, fruit and vegetables, and other single-ingredient products should carry labels of countries of origin. This, according to him, would help government agencies to address the challenges of food safety.

It would also ensure that consumers know where their meat or dairy products come from. It will also help to know if foods were transported over a long distance so consumers can avoid buying them.

He said people have the right to know what’s in the food they buy and they need to be able to do it easily and quickly so that they can make healthy choices.

He said all kind of edible products were being imported into the country without proper examination of the potential for negative consequences. Consequently, Atinmo of the Department of Human Nutrition University of Ibadan, advocated a regulation that will compel food companies to add key data on food labels, including name, list of ingredients, ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates.

Fapohunda of Department of Biosciences, Bacbock University, Ogun State, said there was no good justification for ‘hiding away’ core health information on food packaging.

He said every piece of information should be legible, adding that the origin country of products is a key criteria for consumers when buying food. He said that it is not easy for consumers to find out where their food comes from as origin information remains absent from many foods sold in the markets.

According to him, when manufacturers do declare the origin on a voluntary basis, writing “made in” or “product of”, it’s often also impossible to figure out if a product was only processed, transformed or farmed in the given country.

He said most consumers are interested in the origin because they relate this to the quality and the safety of the food.

He advocated that origin labelling should become mandatory for all meats, milk, unprocessed foods, single-ingredient foods such as flour and sugar and ingredients that represent more than 50 per cent of a food.